Ogden High School and the Embodiment of Craft

Ogden, Utah in the 1930s was Utah’s second largest city with 40,272 inhabitants, behind Salt Lake City’s 140,267 inhabitants, and while the Great Depression wreaked havoc on the urban industry and economic forces during that tumultuous decade, the city itself saw modest growth, reaching 43,688 inhabitants in 1940, an 8.5% increase.[1]  By contrast, between 1900 and 1930 Ogden’s population increased 246%.  During the boom years of the 1920s Weber County was enmeshed in three main trends of economic development – “agriculture, railroading, and business.”[2]  Given that 77% of the population of Weber County resided in Ogden,[3] it’s fair to say that Ogden was built on the railroads, with business a necessary result.  In 1929, Ogden boasted eighty-nine industrial companies which took in approximately $40 million in volume.  Ogden’s expansive railyards, as the terminus for the Southern Pacific, the Union Pacific, and the Denver and Rio Grande Western railroads, included four steam lines and three electric lines and employed 3,360 employees, most of which resided in Weber County with annual salaries totaling $5,610,257.  Daily, these industrious workers serviced 119 steam trains and fifty-eight trains and buses for the electric rail lines and which annually computed to nearly 1.5 million rail cars handled in the yards, in which there were over 609 different tracks making up eighty-five miles of track.[4]  In short, “Ogden became the greatest railroad center of the Rocky Mountain regions.”[5]

            In 1930, the county was dominated by five banking institutions included the First Security Corporation, with $50,000,000 of resources and twenty-seven branch banks in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, the Commercial Security Bank, the First Nation Bank, the First Savings Bank, and the National Bank of Commerce.  Businesses in the 1930s in Weber County included two large meat packing plants, thirteen canning factories, five clothing manufacturing businesses, a healthy bottling industry with four plants, four wholesale baking plants, three iron foundries, a sheet metal industry with seven plants, two brick and tile plants, eleven printing establishments (including the Ogden Standard Examiner with a daily circulation of 12,186 newspapers, among many others.[6]

            The expansion of Ogden School District followed the explosive trend of boom in Ogden, being organized in 1890.  During the decade that followed it supplemented high school courses to its curriculum, particularly in English.  (IMAGE 1) In 1896, the district leased the New West Educational Society school building at 25th and Adams and formalized the purchased of the building for $15,000 in 1898, at which time 185 high school students were enrolled in the Ogden District.  

(IMAGE 2) High School courses were held in the building from 1896 to 1909 when a new Ogden high school building was constructed a 25th and Monroe by the Eccles Lumber Company at a cost of $100,000.[7]  (IMAGE 3) This high school was the only one in the county until Weber High, operated by the county, was built in 1926 at 11^th Street and Washington Avenue.[8] 

            Amid this optimistic and promising milieu arrived the Great Depression, decisively ending “the prosperity brought by the railroads during the decade of the 1920s...”[9]  “The Depression years of the 1930s were difficult years for businesses and people in Weber County.” [10]  For example, the number of farms in Weber County 1924, numbered 1,253; in 1930 numbered 2,040 farms, and in 1940 numbered 1,693 farms.[11] And during the Great Depression the Ogden State Bank failed an event which severely affected the business climate of Ogden.[12]  Despite the great contraction of the economy, the number of students taught in the Ogden City Schools between the ages of six and eighteen in 1937-38 was 10,555,[13] a flourishing and depression proof industry and one which demanded a congruent response by the Ogden School District.  As New Deal Programs ramped up, Weber County became a targeted area for assistance, most certainly affecting farming, but to such a degree that the area was described by historian and Ogden Native Thomas Alexander as a “Federal Colony.”[14]  In June of 1933, Ogden City began negotiations for Federal government relief aid to construct a new Ogden City high school with R.A. Hart, the State Director of the PWA (Public Works Administration) for Utah, for $1,745,000.[15]  The Ogden Board of Education was asking for supplementary funding of $600,000, however, the application was not approved. [16]  In May of 1935, the Ogden Board of Education was offered $250,000 from the State’s PWA liason to construct the new high school.[17]  At this time, the original estimated costs of construction were $830,000 (later adjusted to around $1,200,000) leaving $580,000 for Ogden to supplement which was done through the approval and issuance of a bond, “which only charge 2 ½% interest.”[18] 

Harrison High School became Public Works Project #1423, and the prominent Ogden firm of Hogdson and McClenahan began working in earnest on the construction drawings.  (IMAGE 4) Hired as the Ogden City School District’s architect of record, the firm issued drawings for the high school on March 30, 1936; the drawings were approved by R.A. Hart on April 20 of that same year.[19] 

            Harrison High School, later named Ogden High School became a different sort of public building for Ogden.  Built on a swampy field on the outskirts east of town on the benches of Mt. Ogden, Ogden High defined and created a sense of place for the tens of thousands of students that have called it home and for the community at large.  The expedited construction of Ogden High School, between the ground breaking on October 1, 1936 and it’s dedication on October 29, 1937 became the embodiment of craft in public building.  At the dedication ceremony, held in the lavishly encrusted auditorium, Governor Henry Blood stated, “While I don’t mean to condone lavish expenditures.  I can’t point to a thing in this building but what is justified…the quality of the building will endure long after the cost is forgotten.”[20]  Leslie Hodsgon was more protective of his masterpiece and the effort of craft that was employed in its design and construction.  In his speech at the dedication Leslie Hodgson stated: “You hurt the men who built it when their work is hurt.”[21] In essence, the building was the embodiment of the collective and individual craft of the architect, the builder, and the craftsmen erecting the structure.  It is this very embodiment of craft that defined the sense of place that Ogden High established and sustains in the community.

            Ogden High School’s architectural style fits comfortably into the concisely trendy Art Deco style, a phrase derived from the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs in 1925 in Paris.  Popularized in the 1920s and 1930s, and concurrent with the International Style of the 1920s and 30s, it stood in stark counterpoint to the rigidity and inert essence of Modernism, the industrialized architecture of Le Corbusier’s “Machine age.”  Art Deco, and its nuanced characterizations –Traditional modern, Moderne, or Jazz Modern – “…flew in the face of European modern movement puritanism in its obsession with ornament, axial composition, gaudy polychromy, and a sort of consumerist theatricality.”[22]  In essence, Art Deco became a style associated with modernist structure with a classical cloak and Ogden High was no exception, a sort of amalgamation between the organic ornament of Antonio Guadi’s La Sagrada Familia, the streamlined verticality of Hugh Ferris’ idealized skyscraper from the Metropolis of Tomorrow, and the simplicity and rationality of Irving Gill’s Dodge House.  (IMAGE 5-7)

Leslie Simmons Hodgson was arguably Utah’s most distinguished and architects of the Period and the most conversant in the Art Deco Style and established a sound architectural character in Ogden during the depression years with monuments such as the Forest Service Building and the Ogden City Municipal building.  .”[23]  In some ways, the return to elegance espoused by the Art Deco philosophy was a return to a simpler time, a return to the tradition and convention of the Arts and Crafts while boldly grappling with the present and advancing with realism toward an unknown future.  Ogden High School was the piece de resistance in this triad of architectural monuments.  It defined hope and optimism amid a sea of grief and despair.  And it put people to work, craftsman to be sure.  Architects, builders, carpenters, masons, steel workers, plasterers, painters, glaziers, etc. 

            Leslie Simmons Hodgson was born December 18, 1879 in Salt Lake City.[24]  (IMAGE 8) Leslie’s father, Oliver, a builder by trade and part owner of the successful Salt Lake Building and Manufacturing Company, taught his son the craft involved in construction.  Hodgson’s architectural career began in 1899 as a draftsman for the prolific firm of Samuel C. Dallas and Richard K.A. Kletting at 13 Hooper & Eldredge Block. [25]  In 1905, following his apprenticeship and licensure under the tutelage of Dallas and Kletting, Hodgson made a bold move and accepted the position of chief draftsman for the firm of Hebbard and Gill in San Diego, California.[26]    

Working in the office of Hebbard and Gill for less than a year, John Irving Gill’s methodology and architectural philosophy would have a lasting impact on the future career of young Leslie Hodgson.  Gill himself was of fortunate circumstance and worked in Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan’s Chicago office from 1890 until 1893, alongside Frank Lloyd Wright. Tantalizing though it is, there is an influence which Gill imparted to Hodgson, which is arguably more significant than the speculative connection to the Holy Grail of American Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright.  No doubt, Hodgson would have been fairly acquainted with the developing aesthetic of Wright, but, nonetheless he worked with Irving Gill and not Wright.  As one scholar described Gill’s work: “The significance of stripped simplicity in his work was, therefore partly moral, but very far in its meanings from the machine idolization of the avant-garde in Europe who were to create the modern movement of the 1920s.”[27]  Gill embraced the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement and married the seemingly counterbalanced system with that of his modern vernacular aesthetic.  Gill simplified his architecural design into four basic design motifs:  the straight line, the arc, the circle, and the square.[28]  Although Gill was still in his early career, Hodgson gained valuable insight to modern residential trends in architectural design through his employers keen understanding of art and craft.  Again, the Arts and Craft requires contraposition with its counterpart, Modernism, to understand its philosophy.  “Indeed much of the effort of the generation which was to create the modern movement in Europe was directed against handicraft aspirations. None the less, Arts and Crafts ideals had an important purgative function by stressing the values of simplicity, honesty, and necessity.”[29]  Undoubtedly, Hodgson would have intimate familiarity, if not direct involvement, with such works as the Pickwick Theater (1904-1906) in San Diego (IMAGE 9), which copied the “golden door” from Sullivan’s Transportation Building at the Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893; or the George Marston House (1905) in Balbo Park, California (IMAGE 10); the Julius Wangenheim House (1905) (IMAGE 11);  in San Diego; or the Moses Flower Shop (1904) in Bay Harbor, Maine (IMAGE 12). 

Timothy Anderson described Gills influence as part of the overall pantheon of California architects: 

The one thing which seemed to bind artist and author, architect and craftsman alike, which seemed to hover over the entire creative community in both north and south was a strangely palpable sense of place--of the land and of the individual's identity with it. [30]

            The important point is that the link to Gill imbued in Hodgson a lasting dedication to the Arts and Crafts ideals, which in effect was an effort to “revive handicrafts and reform architecture by using traditional building crafts and local materials.”[31]  Hodgson’s ability to create and innovate a local vernacular of a popular style was his defining characteristic.  The craft aesthetic was Hodgson’s trademark when he returned to Utah in 1906, and formed a partnership with  Julius A. Smith in Ogden, Utah.  The new partnership was prolific, producing numerous commissions in the four years before it dissolved in 1910.[32]  Likely the most important design during of the partnership was the design of the new Ogden High School in 1909 at

25^th Street

and

Monroe Avenue

and the relationship and collaboration that followed.   The firm hired a talented and eager young architect named Eber F. Piers to assist them as draftsman on the project.  A native of Denver,[33]  Piers began his architectural career there as a draftsman, arriving in Ogden in 1908 where he worked in that same capacity for Smith and Hodgson for two years.[34]  Ogden High School was designed in the Prairie Style aesthetic, and Piers and Hodgson both seemed fluent with the stylistic dialects. 

            Hired by David Eccles in 1910 to design the Eccles Avenue subdivision, Hodgson and Piers worked in the Prairie Style aesthetic to create a “neighborhood park”[35]  Although Hodgson likely set the general theme for architectural design in the Eccles Subdivision, he did not reproduce an academically accurate Prairie Style.[36]  Rather, the earlier houses that he designed were essentially Prairie Style, but were enriched and localized through Hodgson's ingenious artistic ability.  For example, the Elijah Larkin home at

2545 Eccles Avenue

combines three different styles, Neo-Classical Revival, Southern Colonial, and Prairie Style.[37]  The other vernacularized Prairie style homes typical of Hodgson’s agile aesthetic included the John S. Houtz home at

2522 Eccles Avenue

and the Leroy Eccles home at

2509 Eccles Avenue

(IMAGES 13 & 14)

. 

            Leslie Hodgson formed a partnership with Myrl McClenahan in 1920 and the twenty-year partnership changed the landscape of Ogden architecture with such buildings as the Egyptian Theater (1924), the Ben Lomond Hotel (1927), the Federal Forest Service Building (1934), Ogden High School (1937), and the Ogden Municipal building (1939).  These examples, to name only a handful, “highlight the partnership's architectural versatility, expertise, and significance in the city of Ogden. The significance of these buildings is their social and cultural value, their function, the employment in building them, and their long lasting affect on Ogden city.”[38]

         As noted earlier, Ogden High School was the culmination of Hodgson’s career.  Michael MacKay noted:  “It’s aerodynamic, streamlined style was an architectural symbol of new jobs, a new time, and the beautification of the city.”[39]  At the time of its completion the superintendent of the Ogden District summed up the impact of the building:  

“The building just completed is the last work in high school construction, and one of the finest buildings of its kind in the West. It was designed by Ogden architects and built by an Ogden contractor, both of whom are deserving of great credit for the excellency of their work. It will always be a great asset to our city and will serve the needs of this community for many years to come.”[40]

Speaking to the Deco aesthetic rising in Ogden in the late 1930s, then mayor Fred M. Abbott stated: 

“The impressive new City and County Building, like the Hotel Ben Lomond, the First Security Bank Building, the Forest Service Building, and the new high school on the bench, towers against the future, while yet it shoulders the past.  It stands amid buildings curiously outmoded, breathing the spirit of nineties.”[41]

Judging by the staggering volume of work and the quality and permanence of the work as noted previously, it is readily apparent that Hodgson and McClenahan enjoyed a rare working relationship, each individual complementing the other in a manner which resulted in astounding architectural creations.  It was suggested that Hodgson did most of the conceptual work and McClenahan did the drafting.[42]  Robert Hodgson described in further detail their working relationship, “Leslie would give the design concept sketches to “Mac” who would turn out the working drawing details.  In “Mac’s words, Leslie was the driver and he the machine.”[43]

            As stated, Ogden High was the culmination of a successful and lifelong career for Leslie Hodgson.  His, and McClenahan’s, fluency with the style and has ability to adapt and invent, is what defined Ogden High.  His level of craft, as evident in the construction drawings, proves his knowledge of the trades and the skills and abilities contained therein.  Hodgson’s Art Deco style was aptly characterized by Jack Goodman who described it as follows:

It is an art deco treasure trove; its interior retains polychromatic-stenciled walls, marble dados, metal trim, patterned floors, and cubist-form plasterwork reflecting the high quality workmanship that Depression-era Public Works Project forces put into the structure. Outside and in, the metal framed windows remain sturdy, the exterior, light tan glazed terra cotta, and slightly darker tan bricks show little deterioration despite extreme summer heat and winter snow. The main entrance above two broad flights of steps is especially fine. Geo floral motifs decorate the terra cotta spandrels, geometric glass grills are in set above four big doors, and the integration of both vertical and horizontal elements makes it plain that Leslie Hodgson was one of Utah's most masterly architects. [44]

His mastery of the arts developed from raw talent and an unrelenting work ethic.  His daughter , Lou Homer, who worked as a receptionist described the typical day at the office in the Eccles Building:  “Six o'clock in the morning, and we were down at the office, but it didn't bother him to get up early, and it didn't bother him to work late, But he worked too hard sometimes, and he worked too long.”[45]

Ogden High was designed with a distinct axiality in mind, a rational division of space, and balanced massing with intuitive hierarchies.  The grand monumental entrance through which all students have passed is symbolic of ascending the difficult mountain of knowledge and education.  Hodgson’s primary intent was to imbue inspriration in the student citizen as they entered the halls and were enriched in its lavish finishes and prepare them for their journey toward fully integrated citizenship as future leaders of our cities, states and nation.  Secondarily, it was a building for the community at large, built by the labor of the community and in large part funded by the community, its stands as an enduring testament to that commitment.  As we find ourselves fully invested now in its multimillion dollar renovation, the community has again shouldered a large burden to fund the construction, ensuring that the school will last another 75 years and inspire countless more student citizens as they pass through its halls.

---

REFERENCES:

[1] Moffatt, Riley. Population History of Western U.S. Cities & Towns, 1850-1990. Lanham: Scarecrow, 1996, 308.

[2] A History of Weber County, Richard C. Roberts, Richard W. Sadler.  Utah Centennial County History Series.  1997 Utah State Historical Society, Weber County Commission.  251.

[3] Ibid.,  242.

[4] Ibid.,  275.

[5] Beneath Ben Lomond’s Peak:  A history of Weber County 1824 – 1900. Daughters of the Utah pioneers, Weber County Chapter, Compiled and Edited by Milton R. Hunter, Ph.D.  Publishers Press, Salt lake City, Utah:  1966.  423.

[6] A History of Weber County, Richard C. Roberts, Richard W. Sadler.  Utah Centennial County History Series.  1997 Utah State Historical Society, Weber County Commission.  257-282.

[7] Ibid.,  226-227.

[8] A History of Ogden, Prepared by the Utah Historical Records Survey Project Division of Professional and Service Projects Works Projects Administration Utah State Historical Society Ogden City Commission  Published by Ogden City Commission, October 1940.  62.

[9] Beneath Ben Lomond’s Peak:  A history of Weber County 1824 – 1900. Daughters of the Utah pioneers, Weber County Chapter, Compiled and Edited by Milton R. Hunter, Ph.D.  Publishers Press, Salt lake City, Utah:  1966.  276.

[10] A History of Weber County, Richard C. Roberts, Richard W. Sadler.  Utah Centennial County History Series.  1997 Utah State Historical Society, Weber County Commission.  283.

[11] Ibid.,  252. (author cites:  State of Utah, Bulletin No. 5 of the Industrial Commission of Utah: Period July 1^st, 1926 to June 30^th, 1928, 11.)

[12] Ibid.,  277.

[13] A History of Ogden, Prepared by the Utah Historical Records Survey Project Division of Professional and Service Projects Works Projects Administration Utah State Historical Society Ogden City Commission  Published by Ogden City Commission, October 1940.  62.

[14] A History of Weber County, Richard C. Roberts, Richard W. Sadler.  Utah Centennial County History Series.  1997 Utah State Historical Society, Weber County Commission.  251.

[15]  Michael MacKay and Michael Mitchell, MS 249  Box 1, Folder 1, page 10.  Stewart Library Special Collections.

[16] Ibid., 10.  From Ogden Standard Examiner June 18, 1933 1, June 21 1933, 1.

[17] Ibid., 10.  From Ogden Standard Examiner May 19, 1935, 1.

[18] Ibid., 10.  From Ogden Standard Examiner May 19, 1935, 1.

[19] From the construction documents for Harrison High School.  Courtesy Ogden City School District.

[20] Michael MacKay and Michael Mitchell, MS 249  Box 1, Folder 1, page 10.  Stewart Library Special Collections.  From Ogden Standard Examiner October 30, 1937, 8A.

[21] Ibid., 10.  From Ogden Standard Examiner October 30, 1937, 8A.

[22] Curtis, William J.R.  “Modern Archtecture since 1900.”  233. 

[23] Ibid., 233. 

[24] Fullmer, Teddy.  Leslie Simmons Hodgson:  Architect of Ogden.  Manuscript. 4. 

[25] Ibid., 4.  National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form,

Eccles Avenue

Historic District.

[26] Fullmer, Teddy.  Leslie Simmons Hodgson:  Architect of Ogden.  Manuscript. 4. 

[27] Curtis, William J.R.  “Modern Archtecture since 1900.”  97. 

[28] Ibid., 97. 

[29] Ibid., 97. 

[30] Timothy J. Andersen, Eudorah M. Moore, Robert W. Winter, eds., California Design 1910 (Pasadena: California Design Publications, 1974), 8.

[31] Fleming John.  Penguin Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.  25.

[32] Fullmer, Teddy.  Leslie Simmons Hodgson:  Architect of Ogden.  Manuscript. 5. 

[33] Piers, John L.  A Biographical Sketch of Eber F. Piers.  Manuscript.  Stewart Library.

[34] A History of Weber County, Richard C. Roberts, Richard W. Sadler.  Utah Centennial County History Series.  1997 Utah State Historical Society, Weber County Commission.  363.

[35] National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form,

Eccles Avenue

Historic District.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Michael MacKay and Michael Mitchell, MS 249  Box 1, Folder 1, page 10.  Stewart Library Special Collections.

[38] Ibid., 7.

[39] Ibid., 11. 

[40] Ibid., 11.

[41] A History of Ogden, Prepared by the Utah Historical Records Survey Project Division of Professional and Service Projects Works Projects Administration Utah State Historical Society Ogden City Commission  Published by Ogden City Commission, October 1940.  66.

[42] [42] A History of Weber County, Richard C. Roberts, Richard W. Sadler.  Utah Centennial County History Series.  1997 Utah State Historical Society, Weber County Commission.  283.

[43] Fullmer, Teddy.  Leslie Simmons Hodgson:  Architect of Ogden.  Manuscript. 8. 

[44] Michael MacKay and Michael Mitchell, MS 249  Box 1, Folder 1, page 11.  Stewart Library Special Collections.  From The Salt Lake Tribune, October 25, 1987, E4.

[45] Ibid., 4. From Lou Homer, Interview, summer 2004.

©  2011  Steven D. Cornell

Utah's Postmodern Traditions

Modernism in Utah has resurged and is being idealized through a passionate committee within the Utah Heritage Foundation, called Utah Modern.  Hip among metropolitan intellectuals, buildings like the First Security Bank Building (1957) on Main Street and 400 South by Los Angeles based architect W.A. Sarmiento and local architect Slack W. Winburn and the Pacific Northwest Pipeline Building, also known as the Public Safety Building (1957-58), also by local architect Slack W. Winburn are coveted examples.  This retro-infatuation and counter-intuitive effort to preserve Utah’s modernist inventory of architecture, a style and movement which shunned the very idea of preserving the past, warrants a look at its antithesis, Postmodernism, a distinguished and perhaps ridiculed style, as short lived and sparse in Utah as it was poplar and ubiquitous in New York and other eastern metropolises (as well as Disneyland) in the 1970s and 80s.  Postmodernism is not a style of architecture typically associated with the more serious and pendantic tendencies of the Beehive state, nevertheless its influence is evident and noteworthy.

Postmodernism’s posterchild is arguably most epitomized in Robert Venturi’s Guild House in Philadelphia.  The Guild House is in particular a celebration or, perhaps, a mockery of elderly retirement institutions.  Defined by an architecture that glorifies the populist tradition, an anti-utopian realism, abounding in kitsch and wit, Postmodernism in its most simplified philosophical definition was a reaction against the minimalist tendencies of Modernism, and attempted to stir a nostalgic desire to restore symbolism and ornament in architecture.  Venturi’s Postmodernism called for messy vitality and elevated kitsch to new levels. (i) Postmodernism typically carries a peggiorative connotation, however, the stylistic and philosophical tenets of the movement are well grounded and complex in a deliberate and truthful manner.  As Vincent Scully stated in response to Robert Venturi’s architectural treatise “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture”:  “Venturi makes us see the past anew.” (ii)

Typically, Postmodern designs were defined by classical appliqués on the modern box, an ersatz festooning with a bold superficiality.  The most obvious festooned box in Salt Lake City, perhaps, was the faux façade of the Crossroads Mall (1974), referencing the original Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI).  Considered America's First Department Store, ZCMI was founded in March 1868 and continued as such until it was purchased by Macy’s in early 2000.  ZCMI’s original three-story brick and cast iron façade emitted a distinctive presence on Salt Lake’s Main Street for nearly a century.(iii)  Having undergone a number of expansions and alterations since its construction in 1876, the original façade was eventually pulled down as a large swath of the downtown core was razed as an effort supported financially by the Mormon Church to revitalize downtown area through one of the first iterations of transposing and stitching the suburban mall into the downtown urban fabric.  Simplified in its decoration, and losing its sculptural depth, the original façade was pasted onto the anti-pedestrian box at the north end of  Main street as a whimsical reference to the original form.  The introduction of the original façade onto the solid street wall of the mall was like the awkward marriage between Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts.  Devoid of windows, the diaphanous façade revealed the solidity of the blank wall behind and in so doing revealed its own ersatz existence.

The wit of the architecture was lost on the fact that the malls displaced the downtown urban fabric and ultimately destroyed the downtown core amid unrealized promises of revitalization.  At the time, the architectural losses were offset in preserving the ZCMI facade fronting Main Street.  This same cast iron façade was recently dismantled and removed as part of the City Creek’s downtown redevelopment project in Salt Lake City.  The highly worn façade has been restored and is currently being re-erected on a new steel structural “box” in approximately the same location as it was before, sliding back in place like a comfortable pair of old jeans.  Unfortunately, the designers have again failed to relate or integrate the original façade into the new construction occurring behind, simply leaving it outside like a dog in the rain. 

In a nearly obscene witticism, the LDS Social Hall Monument at 150 South State Street, replaced the original 1852 structure housing the first theater in Utah and which was later demolished in 1922.  The monument was constructed in the early 1990s as an obvious copy of Venturi’s 1970s reconstruction of Benjamin Franklin’s residence in Philadelphia.  Made of an ephemeral and specter-like steel frame marking the extent of the space occupied by the original form of the building, the architecture recalls Utah’s industrious and culturally driven pioneer heritage.  The nearby inscription on the historical marker notes: 

 

This monument marks the site of the Social Hall, the first recreation center in the Intermountain West.  Built by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints under the direction of Brigham Young.  Made of plastered adobe walls with native wood floors and roof.  Auditorium 40 by 60 feet, seating 350 persons, stage 20 by 40 feet, dressing rooms and banquet hall in basement.  Dedicated January 1, 1853.  Here the Deseret Dramatic Association conducted many home talent theatricals, musicales and other festivities. Sessions of the Legislature, official meetings, receptions, banquets and other social functions were held here. It was used as theater, library and gymnasium by the Mutual Improvement Associations. In 1922 the building was razed. [iv]

The ersatz monument, in its witty interpretation of the former structure, remains an important marker of place and, culturally, is important in defining the building that once existed.  By creating the monument to mark the former space occupied by the Social Hall, however, the permanence of its absence is confirmed, a fait accompli, denying in a sense its future presence, but by defining its absence it becomes more permanent. 

The environmental comedy inherent in the 87-foot tall sculpture, the Metaphor: The Tree of Utah sometimes called the Tree of Life, in the vast horizontality of the salty desert about twenty-five miles east of Wendover on Interstate-80 is apparent as cars and semi-trailers motor by at 75-miles an hour.  Created by Swedish artist Karl Momen in the 1980s and dedicated in 1986, the sculpture is constructed of concrete and consists of an abstracted square trunk from which six large spheres of varying size faced with natural rock and minerals native to Utah are suspended.  Momen was born in 1934 in Masshad, near the Russian border in Iran, was educated as an architect in Stuttgart and later lived and worked in Sweden as artist and architect.  Momen positioned several broken spheres segments on the ground around the base of the tree and which depict the complete cycle of life from birth to death as decaying fruit disgorging its seed into the fertile ground.  Inscribed on the plaque at the base of the sculpture are the words from Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy.   Based on earlier motifs painted by Momen, his inspiration originated while traveling through Utah to San Francisco on a spontaneous decision to take I-80.  The "Metaphor: The Tree of Utah” was built to bring "bold color and beauty to the stark, flat, salty landscape.”  “From its very inception Momen’s tree complies with the theoretical stances about non-representation and the creation of concrete objects as the only solution to the artist’s dilemma of how to impinge up his, or her, environment.” [v]

Karl Momen self-financed the project and then philanthropically donated the work to the State of Utah in a ceremony attended by then Governor Norman Bangerter, various state dignitaries and a handful of environmental protestors. It is constructed of 225 tons of cement, 2,000 ceramic tiles and literally tons of minerals and rocks native to Utah.

Ridiculed and scoffed at by passing tourists and travelers alike, the Metaphor: The Tree of Utah was described negatively as meatballs, ice cream scoops or coconuts in local and national media after it was constructed. [vi]  Environmental activists have impugned it as artistic intrusion on the desert’s implacable serenity.  It’s unclear how desert serenity is defined, in part due to the neglible visible intrusion the tacit 87-foot tall monument makes in comparison with the din and horror of the traffic speeding along on millions of tons of concrete occupying the desert floor.  As Herman Du Toit points out in his monograph of the Tree of Life:

…it should be remembered that , for Momen the recurring image of the tree was also a veiled reference to concerns with environmental issues that were prevalent during the 1970s.  In Momen’s iconography the tree became a symbol that represented the natural order of all living things – an order that was under assault by rampant industrialization and urbanization. [vii]

The verticality of the tree is in direct contrast to the relentless horizontality of the briny desert environment and in its contrast emphasizes that specific environmental condition and the character of the place.  Herman Du Toit theorizes that, “His intuitive awareness, and striving for, strong figure-ground relationships is no where better expressed than in his construction and siting of the Tree of Utah in the flat, barren desert.” [viii]  He futher explains:

...Like Kandinsky in the 1920s, so Momen in the 1980s combines his love of color, circles, and cosmic space in a personal hymn to the universe; and like Kandinsky, he is very 'romantic' and musical. The inscription on the trunk of the tree is Schiller's Ode to Joy, as sung in the choral climax of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. [x]

Momen’s influences are broad but he is connected philosophically to abstract Russian Contructivism such as Vladimir Tatlin (think Monument to the Third International), El Lissizsky, Aleksandr Rodchenko and others.  Katherine Metalf described the project thus:

The Tree is defined in terms of its proximity to the road that cuts an arrow straight line across the featureless desert.  The “Tree” is to be “read” in terms of these simple but inextricably related elements.  We are reminded of an idea contained in one of the anonymous slogans that was used at the exhibition of Tatlin’s tower in Petrograde:  ‘By realizing the form of the large space, we are overcoming the form.’ [ix]

The majority of viewers participating in the artistic discourse with the Tree of Utah pass by with little understanding of its meaning, history, and impact, and thereby, view it with mockery, as an eyesore and intrusive feature in the landscape.  It is, however, in its intrusiveness, fundamental to understanding the place in which it is situated.  In isolation, the relentless horizontality and relative featureless monotony of the desert landscape fails to communicate its own inherent power and awe.  The contrasting form of the Tree of Utah is the object which promotes a hyper-awareness of the place and, in essence, defines the sense of place.  The Tree is the catalyst, in its wit and messy vitality, that promotes the environmental discourse, resulting in a greater respect and stewardship, for that place.

In contrast to the isolated site of the Tree of Utah, The Triad Center was developed by a trio of Saudi Arabian brothers, Adnan, Essam, and Asil Khashoggi, enriched by their enterprising arms dealerships, and as a sidenote implicated in the Iran–Contra and Lockheed bribery scandals and investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Triad Center is at its heart postmodern, taking historic cues from both the Devereaux House on the Triad Block and the Union Pacific Depot Building on the block to the southwest.  The original three-block concept of the Triad Center, hence the name ‘Triad,’ comprised the block occupied by the current Triad Center, between 300 and 400 West and North and South Temple Streets, and the blocks directly to the south and east.  The plans for these adjacent blocks included a pair of mirrored forty-three story skyscrapers.  The 26 acre site additionally called for three twenty-five story residential towers, a hotel, farmer’s market, ice rink, amphitheater and park, and would be built out at 1,940,000 square feet of office space and 1,430,000 square feet of residential space. [xi]

In 1984 financial terms, the cost was estimated at approximately $410 million and it’s ultimate failure was connected in no small part to Reagan’s recession of the early 1980s.  Construction on the first of three phases began on June 1, 1982 and included the construction of a broadcast house, to house the studios of KSL-TV and KSL News radio, and the construction of a ten-story office building, on the northern side of the project.  Part of Phase 1 included the restoration of the historic 1855 Staines-Jennings Mansion (aka the Devereaux House) which had by that time fallen into serious disrepair after decades of neglect and a tragic fire in 1979. [xii], [xiii], [xiv] Constructed only eight years after the first arrival of the Mormon pioneers in Salt Lake Valley, the mansion was extensively added to and remodeled in the 1870s. Listed on the National Register in 1979, the Devereaux House was the earliest mansion in Salt Lake City, pre-dating the more famous Lion and Beehive Houses on South Temple.  “As a unique mansion in an isolated frontier city, the Devereaux was the setting of many social gatherings that included prominent local citizens and important national and international visitors.” [xv]

Phases 2 and 3 would have seen the erection of the “twin towers,” however, plans for the remaining phases were significantly scaled back. On June 7, 1985 ground was broken for the first thirty-five story office building (originally planned to be forty-three stories), however, financial problems forced a hold on the remaining phases. Excavation had begun and steel for the skyscraper had been delivered on site and within a year the entire development was canceled.  Had they been constructed they would have loomed over the historic Union Pacific Depot like two approaching glacial ice sheets on a hold-out tropical island. Comparable in terms of scope to the scale of the current City Creek project and billed as “Forty-three stories of the most intelligent and sophisticated business space in the city” there was considerable attention on the development in local media. 

Architecturally, the Triad Center, with its ersatz architectural arches and coffers, is in some respects, a failed development, not through malignant intention, but in part through a continued shifting of retail and residential centers in the city’s center.  The failure to construct the two residential towers as part of the overall development, was also key to its lagging and moribund vitality.  The abandoned skating rink heightens the  its abandoned skating rink it becomes a ghost town in the evening as the few commercial tenants vacated the office spaces to return to their homes in the suburbs.  Its recent vitality, due in part to the Gateway development in the early 2000s and the recent occupation of the BYU Salt Lake Center, a downtown satellite business campus, is still a pathetic site.  With historical precedents such as the Triad Center, one hopes against reality that the somewhat ill-conceived City Creek development will develop an immunity to the unwieldy and remorseless economic forces of the market.  The Triad Center is a remnant of Postmodernism’s vanity, of its ersatz proclivity.  In the absence of Phases 2 & 3, there is an escalator structure which was built to connect the various phases, but now serves little or no purpose, like the stairway to nowhere in the house Venturi constructed for his mother in the 1970s. 

The Provo Utah and Ogden Utah temples, were constructed in 1972 and designed by, then, Church Architect Emil B. Fetzer.  Each exhibited a solitary central spire, vaguely reminiscent of post-war temple architecture, but embraced an obvious, yet highly abstract, ornamental program to embellish the exterior, something the immediately preceding temples lacked.  Formally, both consisted of a rectangular massing with soft chamfered corners articulated with alternating attenuated windows within wider solid spandrels, all detached and elevated from its larger orthogonal base through the use of a narrow band of windows recessed from the face of the main block above.  A tall central spire contrasted with the main form like a toothpick through a Reuben. These new Utah temples exhibited formal characteristics anathema to the traditional temple building typology. The new forms boasted of heightened efficiency of the ceremonies within and, therefore promoted a sense of fretful urgency to the work.  Each served a large population center, relieving the stress on the overburdened Salt Lake Temple.

The Ogden and Provo Utah Temples both resemble a futuristic architecture and would greatly influence the architecture of the Washington D.C. Temple (1974), next in line and in design during the construction of the two Utah temples.  Both employed an associative metaphor which is a method whereby one comes to understand the unfamiliar modern building with something that one understands through familiarity. [xvi]  The Apollo Space program depended on the sleek and streamlined Saturn V rocket boosters to propel the astronauts’ module beyond the terrestrial frontiers and into the great voids of space.  The Ogden and Provo Temples captured the same imagery in their architecture with the spires resembling the Saturn V breaking away from the earthly tether atop of pillar of fire and the main massing resembling the billowing exhaust from the powerful rocket boosters.  This familiar imagery was seared in the collective memory of America in July 1969 as Apollo 11 targeted the Moon.  Although the Saturn V symbolic imagery was likely unintended by the architect, the intended symbol of the new Utah temples, the Hebraic pillar of fire and the cloud God employed to stifle the Egyptian army as Israel made her miraculous escape, was very similar.  The Ogden and Provo Temples are unlike any other temple, they are larger symbols, where the architectural systems of space, structure, and program are subordinated and suppressed by the overall symbolic form.  As Robert Venturi alleged: “This type of building-becoming-sculpture we call the duck in honor of the duck shaped drive-in, “The Long Island Duckling.” [xvii]  The Provo and Ogden Utah temples are therefore ducks in Postmodern theory.

Each temple was designed and conceived of as a streamlined futuristic machine with a singular functional motive: to relentlessly churn out ordinance work for the living and dead.  In that regard, each has been highly successful and despite the paucity of architectural acceptance, each has assumed an iconic presence and defined a sense of place. 

NOTES:

[i] Venturi, Robert.  Complexity and Contradiction.  Museum of Modern Art:  New York. 1966.

[ii] Scully, Vincent.  Complexity and Contradiction.  Introduction.  Museum of Modern Art:  New York. 1966 10.

[iii] Martha Sonntag Bradley Utah History Encyclopedia. http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/pioneers_and_cowboys/zcmi.html

[iv] http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=35756 

Erected 1933 by Young Men’s and Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association & Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association. (Marker Number 20.)

[v] Vision in the Desert : the tree of Utah--a sculpture by Momen / Herman Du Toit. 2000.  Agreka Books, Salt Lake city. 20.

[vi] Vision in the Desert : the tree of Utah--a sculpture by Momen / Herman Du Toit. 2000.  Agreka Books, Salt Lake city.

[vii] Vision in the Desert : the tree of Utah--a sculpture by Momen / Herman Du Toit. 2000.  Agreka Books, Salt Lake city. 109

[viii] Vision in the Desert : the tree of Utah--a sculpture by Momen / Herman Du Toit. 2000.  Agreka Books, Salt Lake city. 109

[ix] Vision in the Desert : the tree of Utah--a sculpture by Momen / Herman Du Toit. 2000.  Agreka Books, Salt Lake city. P. 19.

[x] Vision in the Desert : the tree of Utah--a sculpture by Momen / Herman Du Toit. 2000.  Agreka Books, Salt Lake city. P. 109.

[xi] Max B. Knudson (1 June 1982). "Saudis, Utahns open Gateway to future". Deseret News.

[xii] "Broadcast House at Triad Center-A Refelction of KSL's Commitment to the Future". Deseret News. 12 July 1984.

[xiii] Max B. Knudson (7 June 1985). "Arab glad he didn't give up on Utah". Deseret News.

[xiv] LDS soon to buy Devereaux House, Deseret News, July 14, 2005.

[xv] http://history.utah.gov/apps/markers/detailed_results.php?markerid=2671

[xvi] Jencks, Charles.  The Language of Post-Modern Architecture.  3rd Edition.  Rizzoli:  New York.  1977. 40.

[xvii] Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour.  Learning From Las Vegas : The Forgotten Symbol of Architectural Form.  Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 1977.  87.

© 2010 Steven D. Cornell

The Birth of Utah’s Automobile Tourism

Writing in 1987, Wallace Stegner argued:

“The principle invention of western American culture is the motel, the principal exhibit of that culture the automotive roadside. The principal western industry is tourism, which is not only mobile but seasonal. Whatever it might want to be, the West is still primarily a series of brief visitations or a trail to somewhere else.” (1)

Driving north into Salt Lake City along U.S. Highway 89, one encounters extant architectural remnants of the recent past nestled along the fringes of the roadway in the Siesta Motel at 3100 South State, the Temple View Motel at 3060 South State, the Spiking Tourist Lodge at 2862 South State, the Alta Motel Lodge at 1910 South State, the Zion’s Motel at 1829 South State, the Capitol Motel at 1749 South State, the Wasatch Inn at 1424 South State, and the Uptown Motel at 1181 South State. Some motels developed off main routes into Salt Lake such as the Colonial Village Motel at 1540 South Main Street. These building types represented a new mode of lodging, unquestionably a direct result of the democratization of automobile ownership in America during the post-war years and of the Western zeitgeist as described by Stegner, distance and space, both resulting from Western aridity. (2)

Motels represented a counterpoint offspring to traditional commercial hotels popular through the first World War, which were typically located in congested downtown commercial cores and lacked adequate and convenient parking necessitated with the rise of the automobile. Beginning in the 1920s, automobile travelers and tourist frequently squatted off the roadside and earning the nickname “tin can tourists,” and the phenomenon increased during the depression era years of the 1930s. As a result, and in an effort to prevent uncivil vagrants, municipalities began dedicating areas as “automobile camps,” imposing entrance fees and fees for various amenities. In Denver, for example, the local fairgrounds were converted annually into an immense tent city, called Rocky Mountain Lake Park, to accommodate the automobile tourists. (3) The traveler provided their own accommodations. The automobile camps eventually evolved into cabin camps and, according to Architectural Record in 1933, were “one of the few ‘booming’ building sectors of the Depression.” (4) The cabin camps represented an effort to de-urbanize the nomadic experience by imbuing architectural folklore into the experience. These temporary and often poorly constructed cabin camps eventually gave rise to an upgraded building type which sidled up to the architectural terms “cottage and court,” evoking a sense of quaintness and comfort on the edge of the frontier.

The first cottage courts consisted typically of single story detached structures and were ideally located off of major highways approaching urban or populated areas. The cottages were typically arranged around a U-shaped court with a narrow drive path, a feature derived entirely from functional necessity to facilitate in-and-out traffic. Parking typically was located adjacent to the cottage in an attached garage, although this arrangement eventually evolved, with the individual cottages separated by attached garage units, thus forming a continuous facade. (5) In addition, there was typically a centrally located but separate office building that included a private apartment for the motel manager. “Architecturally, cottages were made to look like little suburban houses in order to enhance their appeal for the middle-class tourists and the traveling businessman.” (6) The continuous façade was a feature that distinguished the motor court from the cottage court. While the cottage courts were joined together, the individual buildings were freestanding and, therefore, the architecture evoked a sense of individuality and home. The motor court was typically a single building under a single roof line with one long continuous porch structure. A yellow page advertisement in 1948 under “Motor Courts” touted the Utah Motor Park at 972 South State and 1901 South Main as featuring “Phone and garage with each cottage” and “Complete privacy.” (7)

The term motel is, in fact, an American neologism, a contraction of the words hotel and motor, which appeared sometime between 1920 and 1925. (8) The alternative term which never really took hold was “autel,” a contraction of auto and hotel. The first official appearance of the motel as a building type was Arthur Heineman’s Milestone Mo-tel, in San Luis Obispo, California in 1926. (9) After World War II, the word motel was used to describe the new motor courts. (10) The motel would continue to evolve, culminating in massive multi-story developments clinging to the edges of America’s Interstate Highway’s, in essence, a suburbanized version of the central city hotel which was in effect the very lodging type that gave rise to the motel in the first place.

Some of the first motel prototypes were found in Salt Lake City, such as the Colonial Village Auto Court, constructed in 1937 at 1530 South Main Street, during the depths of the Great Depression. The Colonial Village was constructed on Salt Lake’s Main Street and, interestingly, not on State Street, the designation Highway 89 assumed as it passed through Salt Lake City. Typically motels would have been constructed adjacent to major arterials entering urban areas, which may have been the case, it just suggests a shift in emphasis to Highway 89 later during the 1940s.

As one of the first motel building types in Utah, the Colonial Village Auto Court followed the general trend of the Auto Courts, specifically single story structures joined together by attached garages arranged around an interior court with a narrow drive path. The office was located in the first building as one entered the complex of cottages and this deviated slightly from the prescribed plan but was a condition subject to site requirements. The main court area was located in the rear portion of the site in a quadrangle area reminiscent of Jefferson’s Academical Village. Originally this was a landscaped area meant to evoke a bucolic sense of the country.

Later, in the 1950’s, the area was enhanced with the ubiquitous motel amenity, the swimming pool. The Colonial Village Auto Court’s pool featured a deck made to look like a ship at sea, one wonders if weary travelers drunken on Utah’s summer sun ever lost their sense of place, smelling the salty briny air wafting off the landlocked Great Salt Lake, and believed they were at sea. The Colonial Village Auto Court later changed its name and its sign to the Colonial Village Motel. With its white picket fence, the Cape Cod styled residences with quaint colonial revival detailing such as shutters, chimneys, cornices etc, all evoked a romantic sense of home. A postcard published in the late 1930s advertised “Delightful Accommodations for Visitors in Center of Scenic America.”

That sense of home was always the most appealing feature of the Colonial Village Motel. From the back of a postcard postmarked 1951, “36 Modern Colonial Cottages – Quiet – Cool and Shaded,” and the restaurant next door at 1518 South Main, The Doll House, was advertised as “Home Style Food and Homey Atmosphere.”

The swimming pool was eventually taken out and replaced with parking as the motel has transitioned from overnight stays to short-term and weekly tenures targeted at low-income individuals, unfortunately a national trend, to maintain economic viability.

Motels began to gain footing in Salt Lake City in 1944 with the Zee’s Utah Motel at 1301 South State Street. This was the first official motel listed in the Salt Lake City Polk Directory. The inclusion in the Polk Directory signaled the legitimacy of the building type in Salt Lake City as these new forms attempted to distinguish themselves from the traditional urban hotel and from the motel’s close sibling, the motor court. By 1948, there were two listings in the local Polk Directory (Zee’s was omitted for unknown reasons but reappeared in later publications) the “Boulevard Tourist Lodges” at 1457 South Main and two locations of the “Harold F Roberts” located at 411 North 2nd West and 825 East 21st South. By 1949, there were eight listings under Motel and Hotel, and in 1951, twelve listings under Motel. The number consistently increased in subsequent publications and began leveling off in 1960 with ninety-nine listings under Motel. The local trend in Salt Lake followed national trends of booming motel construction between 1928 and 1961, which increased from 3,000 to 60,951.

The early Motels in Salt Lake City were meant to evoke a romantic sense of tourism, sometimes in a cheap and campy manner. The Casa Blanca Motel at 1489 South State Street was designed to mimic a Spanish hacienda, and in the 1949 postcard, it had all the key features of the Cottage Court, a U-shaped drive, central office, individual cottages joined via garages, and a streamlined path for the automobile as evidenced by the artists depiction.

The Mission Motor Lodge at 855 North 200 West was designed in a Spanish Colonial style, one to coincide to the adjacent Warm Springs. The entire ensemble, with its Alamo-esque parapet and stuccoed facades with the clay tile door canopies, was finished out with a veritable bell tower. The garages recalled liveries and so as to not confuse the tourist, however, the American Flag was proudly displayed atop the domed campanile.

The Utah Motor Park at 972 South State, was the epitome of the early motel building type. In a 1948 Yellow Page ad in the Polk Directory the “125 Beautiful Cottages” of the Utah Motor Park featured amenities such as “Phone and Garage with Each Cottage,” “Restaurant in Connection,” “Modern Public Laundry,” and “Playground for Youngsters.” The Utah Motor Park was built sometime in the late 1920s, a postcard from 1929 shows a fledgling landscape around its centrally located Clubhouse with the block “U” atop each gable. The Utah Motor Park was simple in its approach, it was a home away from home. The iconic Wasatch Mountain loom large in the distance.

The Pilot Café at 1726 West North Temple, was located near the airport, and was a later evolution of the early motels. It featured a continuous roof line, yet with individual walk-up entries to each cottage. The bulky mass of the towers at the ends and the center gave it a sense of a pan-opticon prison yard, easily seen and observed from the central tower, where the manager ostensibly was quartered.

In time, motels became more complex, large conglomerates, requiring acres of parking for the hundreds of rooms. The counterpoint to the Colonial Village Motel was Covey’s New America Motel, which occupied an entire 10-acre city block at 500 South Main Street in Salt Lake City, in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City. The motel featured 320 rooms with air conditioning, radio’s and TV’s according to the 1948 yellow page advertisement in the Salt Lake City Polk Directory. As part of the national Best Western motel chain, this eventually became the Little America Motel and in the 1970s, was expanded to an unbelievable 850 rooms by constructing a large multistory tower, and becoming the Little America Hotel, the premier hotel in Salt Lake City and an ironic culmination to the building type that began modestly as a quaint cottage.

As the demand on Utah’s Highway systems increased in the 1930s, both for transient families en route to a better life in the west, and for those adventuresome Americans experiencing the new phenomenon of automobile tourism, in the “Center of Scenic America” the roadside lodging developed in parallel with the developing road systems, and a new economy emerged. Utah’s major automobile route ,US 89 was originally created in 1926, and entered the state at its southern border through Kanab and winding northward through various pioneer colonies such as Orderville, Panguitch, Salina, Gunnison, Ephraim, Manti, Mt. Pleasant, Fairview, Nephi, Springville, Provo, Pleasant Grove, Lehi, through the Salt Lake Valley and Salt Lake City, and then finally through Bountiful, Centerville, Farmington, Ogden, Brigham City, and Logan to name a few before exiting Utah and making its run through Idaho to the Canadian border. It was along this major automobile route that the motels developed most abundantly from the 1930s through the 1940s. While other routes in Utah were key in the development of motels across the state such as Highway 6 through Price, Highway 189 through Heber City, Highway 40 through Vernal, and Highway 191 through Moab and Price, US 89 was the spine on which all other highway systems were built.

 Motels along these routes were numerous. Kanab, being adjacent to the Grand Canyons north rim, was home to a large population of motel development, and came to be known as “Little Hollywood.” Parry Lodge was founded in 1931 by three brothers: Whitney, Chauncey, and Gronway Parry and has hosted some of the biggest names from the golden age of Hollywood including John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Olivia De Havilland, Gregory Peck, Maureen O'Hara, Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Robert Taylor, Anne Bancroft, Dean Martin, Lana Turner, Clint Eastwood and Barbara Stanwyck, to name a few. The Parry Lodge was a typical Cottage Court motel with the central office (Parry Lodge) and surrounding cottages set in a quaint and comfortable setting. Surprisingly, these are the very features that make it a viable business today.

Some motels have remained vital, still drawing on the relatively unchanged landscape of the early highway system and its modest traffic flow to and from western attractions. These motels have remained somewhat immune to the competition at the larger interstate motel developments. A drive along the southern path of Highway 89 attests to that. However, elsewhere, motels are demolished, abandoned, or reused as transient short term lodging, typically for lower income individuals as demand diminishes for the quaint off-road attractions, replaced by larger national chains which obliterate the economic viability of the mom and pop motel. Most of the roadside motels have had to assume new uses. The Springville Motel at 282 North Main Street in Springville, for example, has altered it business scope and is now the Springville Motel and Apartments. Unfortunately, it’s lost the quaint feel and instead evokes a sense of difficulty and deficiency.

The Seagull Motel at 325 North 200 West (US 89) in Salt Lake City is a good example of the future fate of the building type, although it is not an optimistic one. In 2007, construction was initiated to adapt the motel into ‘urban condos,’ however the 2008 recession jolted the project to a halt and the site is in now abandoned and falling into serious disrepair with little or no hopeful future.

Notes:

1.  Stegner, Wallace. The American West as Living Space. p. 23.
2.  Stegner, Wallace. The American West as Living Space. p. 27.
3.  Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. 31-35.
4.  Quote taken from Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. 39.
5.  Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. 42-43.
6.  Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. 43.
7.  Polk Directory, Salt Lake City, 1948. Buyers Guide.
8.  Merriam Webster’s College Dictionary, 1991 Edition.
9.  Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. 18.
10.  Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. 45.
11. Polk Directory, Salt Lake City, 1944. Zee’s Utah Motel at 1301 South State Street, Tel. 6-0802 was the first listing for a Motel.
12.  Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. Table 1.2 p. 20.
13.  http://www.parrylodge.com/

© 2010 Steven D. Cornell